Kentucky Republican Senator-elect Rand Paul is already making waves in Washington, D.C. with plans to organize either a Senate or bicameral Tea Party Caucus

Paul said he’s been chatting with several people from Kentucky about laying down a communications blueprint to keep the grassroots Tea Partiers nationwide in touch with their newly elected senators and representatives about what’s going on inside the Beltway. Paul told The Daily Caller he plans to start by forming a “nucleus” of conservative senators and then reach out to colleagues in the House.

“My idea is that we would do a bicameral caucus,” Paul told TheDC. “I don’t think there’s been a caucus that has had both Senate and House jointly meeting and I’d also like it to involve the grassroots, in some way, the Tea Party groups so we get some kind of input from folks all around the country, some kind of electronic town hall or something like that.”

Paul said he got the idea from talking with Kentucky Tea Partiers, adding that the activists tell him they want to keep fighting, even though there isn’t another election until 2012.

“They aren’t like, ‘once the election’s over, that’s it,’” Paul said. “So, I’d like to figure out a way that they can have input and we can let them know what we’re trying to do on their behalf as well.”

Paul said he’d expect such a caucus to “make legislators better people and better legislators but, also, it would just give them a guidepost to work from.” He stressed that fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets would be a major focus of his Tea Party Caucus.

Who do you think should be inducted into the bicameral (both chambers of Congress), tea party caucus? Obviously, here are my choices for the senate, right off the bat:

8 comments:

I think it would be great if the caucus included potential tea party supported congressional candidates for 2012. Being that many of them will have no prior government experience, allowing them to be involved in the caucus over the next couple of years would give them some depth to their resumes.

Sen-elect Kelly Ayotte, if she can agree to "small government" when it comes to religiously-charged issues. She's against e.g., gambling and same-sex marriage, but good on many fiscal issues. See the conflict with your small-gov't tendancies, Senator, and it'll be fine! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Ayotte

I might as well add my "fantasy politics" idea here, while I'm at it. Who knows how to set up a fantasy football application?

Instead of players, we pick our "dream team" of two Senators and ten Reps. The scoring would be determined by a team of libertarian referees, who select key bills and give points for having the correct freedom-lovin' vote. There should be an appeals process, maybe even points for legislators who voted the "wrong" way for the right reasons...

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